World building idea/leaning on a resource

I'm a huge of fan of Sin Nomine Publishing's Stars Without Number. It's a table top role playing game. I've almost never played table top rpg's, but I've found that their source books are full of ideas that feed the imagination. What I love about this one is that's focus is on "sandbox" gameplay: creating worlds and environments to be explored rather than establishing a preset plot. As a fiction tool this allows for some character, setting and even plot elements (such as potential sources of conflict) to be pre-constructed and allow me to craft prose from and around them. There's a free version (which is sadly all I have to date) but I do hope to get the book(s).

What I'd like to do is create a core group of characters and take them on a series of adventures. Perhaps find a way to make a proper novel, but will likely have to start with sketches, work my way up to short stories, and go from there.

not so far down

The idea is a guy with nothing but a very bad history and lots of regret takes a job working for a church. They have an offsite manse they let him live in rent free but he must earn his keep by working odd jobs/handy man things both for the church and also in the neighborhood. A very broke, downtrodden, neglected neighborhood where hope doesn't really exist, just a thin will to live. The residents are very distrustful of outsiders. The idea is to paint characters in each home with which he slowly forms bonds and connections. Episodically, individual stories could involve interactions with, some successfully, some drastic failures. He drinks one Miller High Life a night on his front porch at the end of the day. Sleeps on a cot, and has little no furniture otherwise. The house is an old skinny shotgun house, made into a duplex. Not sure who lives on the other side yet. He has an old lawn chair and a floor lamp in the front room, and piles and piles of old discarded paperbacks he's amassed from flea markets and garage sales and discount bins at used book stores. No TV. Maybe a radio. Perhaps a record or cassette player. Record player may be too blatantly romantic, so most likely cassettes.  

Some things he can do for neighbors:
fix appliances- washer/dryer/hot water heater/diswasher/refridgerator
scrub/pedicure feet of elderly woman
cut grass
minor car repair- change oil, tires, plug tires? etc
change breakers
change capactior in ac unit
toilet repair/replace- minor plumbing
hang ceiling fans
furniture repair/minor carpentry
cleaning/chores
cooking/organizing kitchens/grocery shop efficiently
bicycle repair
tutor